It's a Wonderful XFile?
by kitty27
Summary: No man has nothing if he has friends. A Man. A Bridge. A visitor. Just a little holiday project inspired by Capra and Carter. Chapter 4 now up
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is just a little holiday to-do. I'm not promoting any type of theology nor am I trying to steal anything from the X-Files or Frank Capra. It was just an idea I had while wrapping presents and watching some holiday television. Happy Holidays!

Prologue

**11:30 p.m. Dec. 24**

"_Dear God, please watch over my friend tonight."_

"_My son is so lost, oh Lord, please keep him safe."_

"_Heavenly Father, he needs your help. Protect him."_

"_I love him,help me find him. Don't let it be too late."_

The voices weren't numerous, but the conviction held in their prayers were strong. Stronger than the man they prayed for ever knew.

But he would come to know. On this night, he would come to see. To feel. To know a truth. That someone was, indeed, listening.

"Looks like we've got another one." The deep, musical voice belonged to one and no one as it echoed through the place of light.

"Yes…" another voice in the place replied. "Fox Mulder….tonight's his special night."

"We don't have much time," the first voice responded authoritatively. "We better send someone down. Who's turn is it?"

"Let me see," said the second voice, pausing for only a split second. "It looks like…it's Mel's turn."

"Mel?" the first voice inquired, slightly annoyed. "Isn't this Mel's third time?"

"Yes," answered the second voice. "Mel's track record isn't stellar, but regardless, it's time."

"Very well," sighed the first voice. "Tell Mel to hurry. Mr. Mulder needs him now."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is just a little holiday to-do. I'm not promoting any type of theology nor am I trying to steal anything from the X-Files or Frank Capra. It was just an idea I had while wrapping presents and watching some holiday television. Happy Holidays!

**Dec. 24, 11:30 p.m.**

**Outskirts of Washington D.C.**

The hard blowing winds mixed with the heavy snow was the type of weather that would cause most people to hole up in their homes with a cup of hot cocoa, wrapped in blankets and sitting in front of fireplaces.

Or, he reasoned, they would find warmth in loved ones. People significant to their lives who shared that one thing that seemed to connect them, to bind them, offering a special security that could only come with compassion, tenderness and love.

He looked out onto the churning waters of the river below him. The winter weather made the water look treacherous, unforgiving, as the waves crashed against each other and small chunks of ice bobbed up and down in a bitter, aquatic dance.

He never really considered himself empty until tonight. The holidays never bothered him before, but now, as he stood on the very precipice of life itself, he felt the void within him encompass what was left of his soul.

There was nothing left for him. There was never anything for him to begin with. The truth seemed to be more elusive than ever, as if fate itself were playing a practical joke on him and the punchline had turned out to be his sad excuse for an existence. All this time, after all he had fought for, he was still without the answers and everyday presented new questions, adding to his constant frustration.

Then there was the guilt. People had been hurt, people were dead. All because of him. The tears that flooded his troubled, hazel eyes and now streamed down his face were not shed for himself. He cried for the people he had wronged. Who had suffered needlessly.

That thought was what brought him to the bridge. He didn't want them to suffer anymore because of him. This was the best way he knew how to stop it.

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ The words kept a steady mantra in his mind as he lifted one, long leg and straddled the bridge railing for a moment, pausing once more to gauge the depth below.

Then he closed his eyes and picked his other foot off of the ground…..

But the sound of tires screeching and the loud bang of the crash as the car hit a tree near the end of the bridge brought Fox Mulder back to reality. He stared at the wreckage that was sputtering 30 feet away from him and unconsciously prayed that no one had been hurt. The car's horn blared into the night.

With quick reflex, his legs swung back over onto the bridge and he ran, sliding here and there in the snow, to the driver's side of the door and yanked it open. He fumbled in his pockets for his cellular phone as the driver of the car moaned and stirred slightly in front of him.

"Be still, sir, I'm calling for an ambulance. You've been in a crash."

Mulder dialed 9-1-1, but to his dismay, his phone blinked "NO SERVICE."

"Damn," he muttered as he felt the man's throat for a pulse. The man wasn't moving and Mulder wasn't finding any sign of life, until, to his surprise, the man sat back and scratched his head.

"I'm fine son," the man said, shifting to get out of the car, despite Mulder's protests to stay still. He was older, perhaps in his 60's and was wearing an old trenchcoat and a fedora. He looked like a detective out of one of those old noir films. "I just hate these infernal contraptions."

For a man who had just been in a doosy of an accident, he was up and around fairly quickly.

"Sir, you've been in a crash, you need to stay still until we can get a rescue unit here." Mulder tried to make the man relax, but the man was having none of it. He got out of the car, stretched and started walking around. Mulder looked at the remains of the white car, which were wrapped around a large tree. He could almost hear Scully now, in her most disciplined tone, her eyebrow arched in skepticism: _"Logically, no one could survive that kind of impact." _

The thought of her made him wince with regret.

"Why are you so sure she would be better off without you?" Mulder looked at the man incredulously, wondering if he had just heard the question he thought he heard.

"Excuse me?" Mulder asked with obvious confusion.

A cigarette dangled between the man's lips and he reached up to light it. The flame from the match highlighted his features in the dark revealing big brown eyes and a distinguished profile. He almost looked like Bogart himself.

"Miss Scully," the man said,the cigarette still in his mouth. "What makes you think she would be happier if you were dead. I think you've underestimated your importance to her, Mr. Mulder."

Mulder began to wonder if maybe he hadn't been hit in the head himself.

"Do I know you?" he asked, hoping for a mundane answer but not expecting one.

The man in the trenchcoat approached closely, and stood, looking Mulder right in the eye.

"Do I look familiar to you?" he said sarcastically. "Look, I've got a job to do, so I would appreciate it if you could keep the semantics to a minimum."

Warily, Mulder reached for his gun and started backing up. The man just laughed.

"Oh that's rich!" he chuckled, tilting his head back and looking up into the night sky. "He thinks I've come here to kill him when he was about to kill himself. You guys really stuck me with an easy one." He looked back down and stared at Mulder. "I'm here to help you son, but you're making it kinda hard to do that."

Mulder leveled his gun at the man, who, it turn, seemed nonplussed.

"My name is Mel. Whether you believe it or not, Mr. Mulder, there are people who care about you, who don't want you to do what you were about to do before I showed up."

Considering his line of work, the things he encountered, the things he had seen, anyone who knew Fox Mulder well would have thought this conversation would not have phased him. Even he knew it shouldn't, but for some reason, it did.

"Who sent you!" he demanded over his firearm.

The man blew out a puff of smoke and smiled. "The who isn't as important as the why, Mr. Mulder. I'm your guardian angel."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This is just a little holiday to-do. I'm not promoting any type of theology nor am I trying to steal anything from the X-Files or Frank Capra. It was just an idea I had while wrapping presents and watching some holiday television. Happy Holidays!

P.S.: Thanks for the reviews! I promise this will be completed by Christmas.

Dec. 24, 11:40 p.m.

Outskirts of Washington D.C.

"You can put the gun down, son, I'm not here to hurt you."

Mulder kept his firearm leveled at the man in front of him, eyeing him suspiciously as he walked around him.

"I'm supposed to believe that you're an angel?" he asked haughtily. "You sure don't look like an angel to me."

Mel straightened up and flicked his cigarette at Mulder's feet before thrusting his hands into his pockets.

"Nice. How many angels have you known, Mr. Mulder?" he replied with a little bite. "You spent too many years in this weird paranoid frame of mind. You claim you 'Want to Believe' but only in the things you think are worth believing in. Therein lies your problem."

Mel sighed and walked slowly towards the bridge, followed by an armed federal agent who was beginning to turn a pale shade of blue from the cold.

"You're so sure that you're always right that you have put all of your faith into searching for the answers to questions that are bigger than you, me or any of us. When those answers don't come to you the way you expect them to, you close off. You turn your back on those who care about you the most and push them away when all they want to do is help you. What is up with that anyway?"

Mulder stayed behind the man as he walked to the very spot Mulder was standing before the crash. Mel looked over the side of the bridge into the water below and pulled out another cigarette.

"You don't know anything about me," Mulder said, keeping his arm level and his finger near the trigger. "Now who sent you?"

Mel blew out a puff of smoke and shook is head. "This is going to be harder than I thought," he mumbled. He turned to face Mulder again, his brown eyes twinkling a combination of mischief and annoyance.

"Look, kid, we could spend all night out here discussing theology, philosophy and the quirky habits of egomanical, narcissitic Oxford trained psychologists, but by the time we come to a conclusion, you would have dropped dead of exposure and I would have failed in my mission. So let's cut to the chase, shall we? Quid Pro Quo, why do you want to kill yourself?"

Mulder eased his finger off the trigger and looked at the man skeptically.

"What makes you think I came up here to kill myself? Maybe I just came up here to enjoy the view."

Mel huffed and flicked his second cigarette off the bridge. Mulder watched it fall into the darkness below, the light from the ash trailing away.

"You shouldn't smoke those, you know," he quipped. "They'll kill you."

Mel pushed his hat up with one finger and gave Mulder a look that said 'You've got to be kidding.' Then in front of Mulder's eyes, he vanished. The agent twirled around wide-eyed, looking for the man who had been standing in front of him a second earlier. It was then that he noticed his gun was also no longer in his hands.

"Hey!" he yelled as he tried to get a grip on the situation. He believed in ghosts. He believed in poltergeists, but he didn't believe this was actually happening. It was almost cliché. Too cliché for Mulder to wrap his head around properly. Just as quickly as he had disappeared, Mel reappeared behind Mulder.

"Okay, make a joke," he said, causing Mulder to jump and let out a small girly scream. But the self-professed angel wasn't thru just yet. "This is serious business kid, and I can't help you unless you let me. So, let's try this again. Why would you want to kill yourself when you have so much to live for?"

At this, Mulder laughed sarcastically, opting to play along with the wacko.

"You really want to know? Okay, then try this on. I have ruined the lives of everyone who has ever come into contact with me. Maybe I'm cursed, I don't know, but I think people have suffered enough because of me. I just want it to stop. I want them to have peace, be happy."

Mel rocked back on his heels and clasped his hands in front of him.

"Now we're getting somewhere. So you think that by killing yourself, you'll save everyone you claim to have hurt future grief?" Mel chuckled and shook his head. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you think the people who care about you will grieve if you take your own life? I mean, it may be a stretch, Heaven knows you're pissing me off, but I think killing yourself would only cause them more pain. So, what do you accomplish then?"

Mulder thought on this for a moment and leaned against the railing of the bridge, rubbing his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose. Whoever this nutjob was, he had a point, Mulder concluded. His mother had already lost so much in her life and he didn't want to think how Scully would react.

That still didn't ease his guilt about the havoc he had brought upon their lives.

"Maybe you're right," he acquiesced. "Maybe it wouldn't have been better if I had never been born."

Mel laughed loudly.

"You really think so, eh?" Mel chuckled as he took another cigarette from his pocket. "Okay champ, you get your wish. You were never born."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This is just a little holiday to-do. I'm not promoting any type of theology nor am I trying to steal anything from the X-Files or Frank Capra. It was just an idea I had while wrapping presents and watching some holiday television. Happy Holidays!

P.S.: Thanks for the reviews! I promise this will be completed by Christmas.

Dec. 24, 11:45 p.m.

Outskirts of Washington D.C.

Mulder half-nodded and scratched his head.

"I was never what?"

Mel just grinned broadly and held his hands up.

"Just what I said. You thought it would be better if you were never born…Poof! You were never born."

The bewildered federal agent decided that he was suffering from some kind of delusional trauma brought on by the stress of the cold. So he decided to placate the hallucination in front of him until he could get some real help.

"Okay," Mulder said with half a chuckle. "I was never born. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and call an ambulance again."

He reached into his jacket pockets only to find nothing there. After getting his hands untangled from the leather, his checked the inside pockets before frantically reaching to his pants. During all this, Mel just rolled his eyes as Mulder started searching the ground, retracing his most recent steps.

"Kid, people who don't exist, usually don't have cell phones." Mel said, the unlit cigarette dangling between his lips. Mulder shot him a dirty look but kept looking around the railing and the edge of the bridge.

"You can makes jokes or you can help me find my damn phone, Mr……." Mulder looked up at him exasperated.

Mel shook his head. "You really don't listen to people, do you? My name is Mel, I'm your…"

Mulder uprighted quickly and got in Mel's face. As he did, he poked the "angel" in the chest only to find that his hand didn't pass through but instead stopped on the meat of the man's shoulderblade. For once, the fact that he wasn't hallucinating made him even madder.

"Right, you're my guardian angel," he was almost yelling. "Well Mr. Guardian Angel, I am a federal agent and you are really starting to piss me off."

Mel chuckled and took another drag. "You're not a federal agent. You don't have a job because you don't exist."

Mulder finally snapped.

"My name is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau of Investigation," he yelled reaching into his back pocket for his badge. "FBI. Get it? That makes me a….."

His words cut off as he realized his badge and wallet, like his phone with also MIA. Wide-eyed, he glared at the man who was tearing a match out of a matchbook. Mel just tilted his head and nodded in affirmation as reality, or at least what seemed to be reality, came crashing down on Mulder.

Mulder usually knew the appropriate thing to say in any given situation. And in this one, the best he could come up with was:

"Oh crap."

His shoulders sagged and he rubbed his forehead.

"Okay, I've seen this movie," he said. "So what do I have to do to right this?"

Mel's brow furrowed as he shifted from side to side.

"Right this? Kid, this is what you wanted."

Mulder's patience was wearing thin.

"Look, you win, okay? I don't want to kill myself anymore, you're my guardian angel and I'd like my life, as crummy as it may be back so I can get on with it," he said flatly. "That way you can have your wings and I can go find Zu-Zu's petals or something and we can all stand around singing 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' if that will make you feel better."

Mel looked to his left, then to his right and sighed heartily.

"You still think your life is so crummy? Why do I get the feeling that if I left now, you'd be back here in a month, if even that long, ready to make that jump again?"

Mulder laughed sarcastically.

"Oh don't worry, I'll pick another bridge."

Mel smirked and adjusted his trenchcoat. Then his smile got broader as if something wonderful had just occurred to him.

"I get what I need to do now," he mumbled. "Okay, Fox, you don't believe you've made anyone's life better, well now I have the opportunity to show you how wrong you are and seeing as you don't have anything better to do, I say we get started."

With that, he lit a match and all Mulder saw was a bright flash.


End file.
